Urban Districts Review Crisis-Response Plans In Wake of Terrorism

Some of the country's urban school districts are reviewing their
crisis- management plans to ensure school officials know how to react
in the wake of citywide disasters. The New York City school system, the
nation's largest district with 1.1 million students, and the Chicago,
Los Angeles, and Houston districts indicated last week that they were
taking a fresh look at their safety procedures. Such scrutiny comes in
the aftermath of the terrorist attacks in New York and at the
Pentagon.

Reports of communications breakdowns and muddled evacuations during
the Sept. 11 strikes on the World Trade Center prompted New York City
Schools Chancellor Harold O. Levy to say at a press conference last
week that he would set up a task force to review school safety
procedures, The New York Times reported. District spokesmen were
unable to provide further information last week.

One of the sites reportedly at the center of the concern in New York
is Stuyvesant High School, which is just a few blocks from the site of
the World Trade Center.

Ron Davis, a spokesman for the United Federation of Teachers, the
union that represents the city's public school teachers, said there
were delays and confusion over whether to remove students from the
school and where to send them. Police eventually ordered an evacuation
of the building.

Mr. Davis said the union has long argued that many schools do not
have adequate emergency plans and are too reliant on rigid protocol.
"There's a top-down management style in the district's emergency
procedures," he contended. "No one can take any action until they hear
from the superintendent, and then through the assistant principals, and
by then you can have a real problem."

At the Sept. 24 press conference, Mr. Levy defended administrators'
decisions on the day of the disaster. "Dismissing children into the
streets at that time was a decision that had to be taken with the
guidance of police," the chancellor said.

"When it became clear that [Stuyvesant] was not as safe as the
streets further north," students were evacuated, he added.

Emergency Drills Helped

Patrick Burke, the principal of New York's High School of Economics
and Finance, located a block from the World Trade Center, said he was
grateful for the "shelter drills" he has to hold four times a year. The
drills require the school's 750 students to file into hallways and away
from windows.

Mr. Burke, whose 10-story building remains closed because of broken
windows and other damage from the attacks, said his staff credits the
preparation for an orderly evacuation of students. The drills "were
always seen as a carryover from the Cold War," he said. "Suddenly, on
September 11, there was a need for it. They really paid off. There was
no panic. Students knew what to do, and that reduced the sense of
fear."

But the UFT's Mr. Davis says that the school system's requirement
that school safety plans be reviewed annually is unevenly enforced,
allowing potential glitches to go unnoticed.

"One school's plans might be reviewed every year, while another's is
only looked at every three to five years," Mr. Davis said. "So often,
these plans are not complete, or they're lax in some way, but we don't
learn that until we have a crisis."

Reviews in Other Districts

Elsewhere, some of the nation's largest school districts are
revisiting their own safety and emergency procedures.

"District officials are in discussion about whether new emergency
plans need to be established in the wake of the national tragedy,"
Heather Browne, the spokeswoman for the 210,000- student Houston
schools, said last week.

In Los Angeles, school district and community safety officials are
on "heightened alert" as they comb through their emergency plans, which
have always leaned heavily toward earthquake responses.

The review will take a hard look at how safety measures and
emergency responses are communicated to the community, said Susan Cox,
a spokeswoman for the 730,000-student Los Angeles Unified School
District.

While Chicago school safety officials were already in the middle of
reviewing their emergency procedures, the Sept. 11 incident underscored
the importance of their efforts, said Andres Durbak, the director of
the bureau of safety and security for the 433,000-student system.

One thing is certain, he said: Chicago will continue to give
principals wide latitude in setting the tone for emergency responses.
"Principals don't sit around waiting for an order," Mr. Durbak said.
"They use their judgment, and we support them."

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